Hello,
I was looking to buy a Volex consumer unit but I cannot find anyone selling blanks. I was going to get the 12 way unit to allow for future expansion but would not need all 12 straight away. Does anyone know where I might get them? Otherwise I'll get another make.
Why are Volex cheaper than the other brands? Should I pay more. Do you get what you pay for?
Thanks.
If you can't get the bits you want easily now I'd be concerned about the availability of spares in the future. A CU isn't something you change every year for fashion reasons so I'd say saving a few pounds on initial cost might be false economy. So go for one of the more widely available makes. Ebay is a good source of special deals.
Manufacturers do change the design of their units occasionally - MK seem to be bad at this - so I'd suggest populating the whole unit with 'likely' values of MCBs for spares - probably 20A and 32A for radial and ring power circuits - if you want a lighting circuit you can always run a 20A radial to an FCU and fuse down to 5A there.
Owain
Yes you do. There is not a lot of space in the Volex for the cables, a crappy busbar and badly fitting lid. Blanks are available from most electrical wholesalers (indeed the Newey and Eyre labeled CUs are rebadged Volex)
Manufactures do change things but you can usually still get old type spares for a price. I notice Hagar have recently changed their CUs and their old blanks will not fit the new box but the MCBs are the same (and it now has a built in spirit level to boot)
So go for one of the more widely available
I would consider Volex to be one of the most widely available (unfortunately). Personally I would fit Crabtree, MK, Click or Hagar. All are nice boards to work with. Screwfix has a special on MK.
Adam
I've bought - or recommended to friends, a few Crabtree units off Ebay, and found them very nice to install - not that I have vast experience of all makes. All from the same supplier. One arrived with a damaged case, and that was replaced promptly, thus somewhat negating any worries about such transactions. They are also happy to mix and match MCBs etc. If it's of interest I'll post the supplier.
MK have a habit of making small but significant changes that can make things "difficult" within the normal life of CU (10 to 20 years IMHO). Personally I choose Wylex, they tend to maintain compatibilty.
10 to 20 years? That means I will now start have to swapping the first ones I fitted. Are you sure? I am not yet old enough to be swapping 20 year old CUs that I fitted.
Adam
I think the problem is that MK doesn't make its consumer unit products. For the items they actually make, I find them to be superb quality, but that doesn't extend to the items they buy in to complete their catalogue. That's not to say there's anything particularly bad about their CU's, but they aren't up to the standard of the rest of their products, nor to the standard of their previous generation CU's IMO.
I've around half a dozen MK CU's on my premises varying from about 5 years old to about 20. If, as has happened recently the RCD fails on MK stuff around 15-20 years old it means a complete new CU. The original stuff is NLA, nothing else fits and no adaptors are available.
The casing, busbars and MCB's are as good as the day they were fitted. A swap of RCD could be done in 10 minutes but on this particular one, due the location (hard up against an overhang) and the routing of individual circuit cables into the CU, the replacement will take many hours, possibly involving plasterwork a bit of joinery and redecoration.
Which is a waste of money when the RCD fails :)
By "life" I meant in the grand scheme of things. The CU's here are of that age, they are perfectly serviceable but could really do with being changed to increase the number circuits (they are all full) and to bring in modern things like MCBs and RCDs...
The house has just five circuits (I lied, it's not full or at least I haven't found what doesn't work if I pull the "spare" fuse). The circuits, protected by rewireable fuses and no RCD are: cooker, ring main (just the one), all lights, immersion/Garage Socket, Heating/Garage Light. It has really come to the end of it's "life", it needs to be replaced with a split load CU with half a dozen or more ways each side.
To add another recomendation..
In the last 2 houses I have owned, I've had to replace the CUs, and I've used second-hand Merlin Gerin units salvaged from work ( where we use MG almost exclusivly. ). They have seemed to be top-quality, a tad on the industrial side, but first-class for obtaining new MCBs etc. They seem to have excellent backwards compatablity to older CUs /dist. boards.
Not a cheap option, but if available second-hand, well worth the money, IMHO.
After using MEM Memshield2 in a commercial setting, I realised how much better the commercial kit is than the domestic kit. I've used MEM Memshield2 in a couple of houses since then, and it's just so much nicer to use. Sure, it costs, but one reason I do DIY is so I can get the best quality result. There's a larger range of RCBO's than for domestic CU's (e.g. I use a C20 10mA RCBO for outdoor sockets, which has been tested by the hedge trimmer a couple of times), and their RCBO pods which clip on to their MCB's mean you can make up strange combinations if you need them. There's loads of wiring space in the enclosure too.
MEM was bought by Eaton a couple of years ago and I haven't used this range since then, but it doesn't look like it's changed.
Yes, that's pretty much the same with the MG stuff.
Steel enclosures, good quality bus-bars, individual isolators between the bus-bar and individual MCBs on some models, tons of space to work, vast range of MCBs /RCBO options / incomers etc etc.
And because its commercial / industrial, they don't seem to want to ( or get away with ) re-designing the range every few years in such a way as to obsole MCBs and other accessories for the sake of a spurious few mm difference in profile.
Thanks for the fast replies. I take on board your comment if you can't get them now, how much worse will it be in the future? N&E said they did not stock Volex; they never said their blanks were re-badged Volex! Another wholesaler said there were slight differences between makes so that one of one make would not fit one of another. I'm going to send the Volex back and pay a bit more for a brand with readily available parts.
Thanks.
I fitted a Volex CU from Screwfix, and also needed blanks... I had some left over from a previous job with a different brand of CU, which I thought I'd give a try: and they fitted absolutely perfectly. Can't remember what they were - possibly Wylex - but my point is that you can probably take your Volex down to the local wholesalers and find some suitable blanks.
But judging from the other responses you're probably not going to buy Volex now, are you?!
David
Wylex, Crabtree and Volex are made by the same company.
Adam
There are no changes AFAIK. The MCBs and RCDs all are the same
I would have put MEM/Eaton on my list if I had thought about it. Great knockouts for trunking/cable entry on the front cover of the CU.
Adam
You will usually find the contactum blanks fit most CUs since they are just DIN cutout size and snap in from the front (cheap and plasticy looking, but they do they job)
That's where I got mine; I'm amazed they don't see all the bits for it.
I hadn't thought of trying them in the shop; that's a good idea. Electrium told me they don't sell direct and referred me to a number of wholesalers. None of them suggested trying before I buy. One told me that another make would not fit by a margin of a few mm, so it seems they were wrong.
I'm thinking of Crabtree unless anyone can give me a good reason not to.
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